A Sugar Free Year

Could We Really Do a Completely Sugar Free Year?

With the recent struggles of starting our son at nursery, read here, sugar has become a big focus in our house. Not that it wasn’t before but we definitely have a bee in our bonnets about it now. It has made us realise just how accepted sugar is in our society. Even though sugar is such a hot topic at the moment, we are feeding it to both ourselves and our children, often in large quantities. Most of the time, we are unaware of hidden sugars that can be found in our bread, cereals, sauces, bacon and many more products that have been prepared for you by the food industry.

An Abundance of Sugar!

With the abundance of foods that we have on offer in this modern age, it is all too easy to eat too much of any type of food. Be this fat, protein, carbohydrate or any kind of food additives, the list is pretty endless. Added sugar is just one of many on the list, however, with the rise in metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes it is a big one and should not be over looked.

You may be thinking that it would be easy to cut out added sugar completely from your diet by not having those 2 sugars in your tea and or that biscuit at snack time. It would be great if this was the case. I already don’t do those kind of things, I’m already super healthy, after all I’m a personal trainer. With the thought of doing a completely sugar free year in mind I have started looking in even more detail than usual at the ingredients of my products. Whilst cooking our Sunday roast, I realised the stock that we use (organic stock I might add) has sugar in it! Stumped at the first hurdle, this really is not going to be easy. Can we do it?

This was actually not my idea, it was my wife’s, so I will hand you over her to explain why she thought it was a good idea:

Sugar from another perspective

As the wife of a personal trainer, I am often told that I’m lucky to live with a personal trainer, I must be so healthy. Unfortunately for me, I love all food, healthy and unhealthy, and no matter what I read about or hear about I still can’t resist a nice piece of cake or a biscuit to dunk in my tea. I find after 35 years of eating sweet food I struggle to resist temptation, which is why I have been thinking of taking action to put myself in the control seat for once. From a family with a history of type 2 diabetes (3 generations), I am already at high risk of developing the illness myself. Since having my son a year and a half ago I have been much more concerned with diet and the type of foods he eats. It started with making only sugar free foods for him up until age 1 and then I just kept going. It was mainly down to the fact that he didn’t care either way whether it had sugar in it or not. This got me thinking that maybe if I hadn’t been exposed to so much sugar would I still be struggling now to shift the baby weight, and possibly being able to resist the cakes? I’ll never know the answer to this. As an adult I feel like I’m always battling to avoid these addictive foods. I have had endless conversations with myself saying “I deserve this treat”, “I only live once” or “I’m exhausted, I need a sugar fix”. The list goes on, I’m sure most of you out there can relate to this.

Setting An Example

Can I set the ultimate example for my son? Could we live in a sugar free house? I want to try my best and hopefully prevent him, in later life, facing the same struggles with sweet food that I have and help him to appreciate and love ‘real food‘. It’s time I take a hold of my sugar addiction, which is why I have decided to complete a sugar free year, I will be documenting my ups and downs along the way. How hard can it be? Already I’m thinking about Christmas, how will I cope? I imagine it will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done!

A Sugar Free Mission!

So here we are on a sugar free mission, already feeling the pressure and (at the time of writing this) we’ve not even started yet.

So that we get this done right we’ve come up with some rules:

We must only consume foods containing intrinsic sugars.

No added sugar in anything, even in the smallest amounts.

No sugar replacements such as honey, maple syrup or even zero calorie sweeteners.

Desserts are allowed but only fruit and dried fruit are to be used to sweeten.

Any dessert made from dried fruits and fruits must have less sugar than the dessert we would be replacing.

Intrinsic fructose must be monitored and must not exceed an average of 40g per day. Why? Click here and here to read more.

No alcohol (yes I said it, NO ALCOHOL at all). Most drinks out there have loads of added sugars so we’re not even bothering to find out which ones are the best or worst for this year of no sugar. We just have to bite the bullet and enjoy a year of no hang overs, actually that sounds quite good!

We have now been to our favourite cafes to enjoy one last treat. My wife with her cinnamon bun and hot chocolate and me with my gluten free, chocolate brownie and latte. This weekend we are off to a local music and food festival where will be having our last alcoholic drinks with friends.

Follow us on our no sugar journey.

We will be posting on the blog, our experiences, findings and struggles once a month for the whole year. Can we do it?